Mr. Cooper:Let me start with
“why” is VoiceNEXT. VoiceNEXT exists because my partner Michael Galkin and I
care. We care as much about our clients’ businesses as they do. That is why
we started the company. The “what” is that VoiceNEXT is a hosted PBX phone
company. What does that mean? In the days before the Internet and the
Internet becoming known as the cloud, phone systems were housed in a box,
known as a PBX, in a closet somewhere onsite on a customer’s premise, in
their offices, and all the phones connected back to it. Then came the
development of hosted PBX. That means that box is no longer in the
customer’s office; the PBX, the brains of the phone system, are hosted in
the cloud on our network. The phone gets connected to the Internet and it
connects back to our PBX in the cloud. That is hosted PBX.

CEOCFO: How do businesses and individuals
make sense of all the options available and how can you help them do so?

Mr. Cooper:That is a good
question. When Mike and I started this company about 14 years ago almost no
one had ever heard of, much less understood, hosted PBX. Today, hosted PBX
may not yet be a household word, but many people understand the concept of
hosted PBX. It is our job show them the what, why, and how they can benefit
from this cutting edge technology. Hosted PBX systems have many features
that traditional phone systems do not. A Hosted PBX system can help
businesses increase efficiency and raise productivity because we help
businesses communicate more effectively. We tell prospects and clients to
manage their businesses and to let us manage their phone systems. For
instance, if a customer loses power or Internet, VoiceNEXT Hosted PBX will
still be answering calls, rerouting calls, and recording voicemail messages.
This is a standard feature called disaster recovery. So many customers are
learning the hard way that if they keep all of their information locally on
a server in their office and not keeping a proper schedule of backups, if
something goes wrong they are in big trouble. Companies that host their
networks in the cloud are far less susceptible to simple outages or larger
disasters.

CEOCFO: What is it that VoiceNEXT is doing
that is not being done now? Are many people still hosting a system on
premise?

Mr. Cooper:Most companies
still have what we call legacy, onsite phone systems. The phone system is
one of those things that a company tends not to not worry about until it
breaks! They are also likely paying a maintenance fee in order to keep that
phone system running. Eventually, the phone system reaches its end of life
and then they have to go looking for a replacement.

CEOCFO: Are people less afraid to move
something to the cloud now? Do you still find some push back? Do people want
to see something physical in front of them?

Mr. Cooper:Yes, people are
more and more becoming less afraid of the cloud. Any pushback is quelled to
a degree by explaining and demonstrating the benefits of hosted technology.
We will analyze their networks for them or work with their IT company to
analyze the relationship between the phone company and their IT services
that are being provided. We work very closely with those companies which are
providing IT and managed services. Once someone hears a phone call in
VoiceNEXT’s high definition, any remaining doubts usually fade away. It is
as different as old standard television was to HD television. You would
think that the person is standing in the room with you!

CEOCFO: How did you know 14 years
ago? Why were you sure or were you?

Mr. Cooper:That is an
interesting story! My father had sold the family business. Although large,
with a few hundred employees, it was still a very “Mom and Pop” environment.
Even with seventy people in the corporate office, my father would come in
and walk around to say hello and find out how everybody was doing. It would
take him an hour to reach his office. His door was always open and it was
always about the people. That is what I learned. Then, when it became a
corporation it was more about the money and less about the people, so I
became very unhappy. My father was having lunch with one of his fraternity
brothers, who happens to be my partner’s father, and he said, “Gary is not
really happy in the family business anymore.” His fraternity brother said,
“Well, my son Michael is looking to do this.” They put us in touch with each
other and we got together and we started the company. One can never be sure
when starting a new company, but you can take certain steps to minimize your
risk. We got the right advisors, developed both long and short term business
plans, and hired the right people. The rest is just hard work. My father
says, “The harder I work the luckier I get.”

CEOCFO: What is your geographic range
today? Where are your customers?

Mr. Cooper:Our customer base
is concentrated here in the New York metro area and expanding. We do have
customers throughout the United States because the phone system requires no
setup on the customer’s behalf. We pre-program it based on the customer’s
needs. The customer needs only phones. We send them out, they plug them in,
and they connect back to our hosted PBX. The phones are very easy to use and
we do all of the training. We also have international clients. They can
extension dial from anywhere in the world to anywhere in the world and there
are no charges for those phone calls. Clients are interconnected with each
other as if they were all in one building.

CEOCFO: Are people coming to you in
addition to the product for the more personalized customer service?

Mr. Cooper:People are coming
to us mostly for the personalized service! Again, we started it because we
really do care. I did not come from this industry. I was the guy who
purchased phone systems for my company. My partner was in the cellular phone
industry. He brought the knowledge of telecommunications technology and I
had the point of view from the end user. Everyone on the VoiceNEXT team
cares about our customers’ businesses. My father always said to me, “You and
your customers are partners. It is not a vendor/customer relationship; it is
a partnership.” That is the way, we always value it. We work together. We do
not make customers fit the design of the phone system. We design the phone
system to fit the way the customer does business. The prospect finds out
very early in the process that, “This company really does care!” We take
time to understand their business, so we know how to design the phone
system. The bottom line on the quotation is the bottom line that they are
going to pay. There are no hidden fees and taxes. When it comes to
installing and onboarding the customer, we hold their hands all the way
through the process. If they have a question, we are always there to answer
the phone 24/7/365.

CEOCFO: Is all customer service US based?

Mr. Cooper:Yes. All of our
support is U.S. based. That is a great question. Many people naturally get
frustrated when they need help and are having trouble understanding the
customer support representative. Our support is 100% U.S. based, 24/7/365.

CEOCFO: VoiceNEXT offers a number of
customized solutions for different industries? What might be some of the
differences that you can put into place depending on the type of business?

Mr. Cooper:That is a tough
one to answer, because even within a specific industry every company
operates its own way. The features and flexibility of VoiceNEXT’s hosted PBX
allows us to custom tailor every system to fit the way our customers run
their business.

CEOCFO: Would you tell us a little
bit about the range of services you can provide to a customer - what they
can pick and choose?

Mr. Cooper:Most people want
to make and receive phone calls, and record voicemails. Most customers use
our voicemail to email feature which allows the customer to listen to their
emails even when out of the office. Customers can also send faxes from their
email account. We offer call monitoring and recording as well as
customizable messages or music on hold. We have auto attendants and web
based administration that allows customers to control and make changes to
their PBX from anywhere. We have “follow me” services that allow you to make
and receive calls from any device including smartphones and laptop
computers. All upgrades and new features are given to the customer at no
additional charge so they are always on the cutting edge of technology and
their phone system never becomes old or obsolete. There is a myriad of other
features too numerable to list.

CEOCFO: Are there services that you offer
that people miss? Is there something that you can provide that people seem
to ignore?

Mr. Cooper:Yes, absolutely!
That is another great question! To me the biggest thing companies fail to do
have is a disaster recovery plan. I think we spoke to it just a little bit.
Most companies do not have a disaster recovery plan. However, when they have
a VoiceNEXT hosted PBX phone system the disaster recovery plan is built in
and set up during the onboarding process. Again, if a client loses power or
Internet the calls are automatically routed to preset destinations. Even
during Super Storm Sandy our customers were always up and running! Their
phones were being answered, voice mails were being taken and emails and
calls were being forwarded to mobile devices. Even if someone has to work
from home, they can have their extension with them at all times, be it a
second desk phone, their smart phone, or computer. Disaster recovery is most
ignored and most important.

CEOCFO: How is business these days?

Mr. Cooper:Business is great
these days! We are sales busy and when it comes to support we are the Maytag
Repair Man. That is because our network is configured to be always up and
running. It is locally and geographically redundant. There are multiple
servers in one location backing up each other and in other data centers
across the country doing the same thing. Each data center has a multitude of
carriers along with multiple power sources. The best prospect is a referral
from a client. We provide such a great customer experience that referrals
are many.

CEOCFO: What is next for VoiceNEXT?

Mr. Cooper:Technology is
always changing so rapidly. We have to make sure that we are always on the
forefront of technological advancement so that we keep our customers there
as well. We are always making sure that we provide our customers with the
highest level of security which is an ever moving target.

“Hosted PBX systems have many features that traditional phone systems do
not. A Hosted PBX system can help businesses increase efficiency and raise
productivity because we help businesses communicate more effectively. We
tell prospects and clients to manage their businesses and to let us manage
their phone systems.”- Gary Cooper